Here's chapter 14, hope you enjoy! I do not own Stranger Things
Chrissy Cunningham's house
Eddie glared up at the former cheerleader's house, her parents had vacated, staying at a hotel nearby and police tape was blocking off the yard. He looked around, thankful that her house was fairly secluded, it wouldn't do for nosy neighbors to be poking their heads out to see a bunch of teens running into a murder house. "So...we're like...sure that Chrissy died in an Upside Down way...and not the murder way?" Steve asked, looking around nervously.
"Only one way to be sure" Dustin remarked, being the first to approach the forboding house.
"And that's to enter a murder scene?" Robin hissed, grabbing his backpack to hold him back. He gave her a look "Would you rather ask Carver? Because if he did kill her he's going to kill us. And if he didn't we'd have wasted time looking for that asshat." He shrugs Robin's hand off and continues into the house, Mike and Lucas following closely behind; flashlights at the ready. "This is so fucking stupid" Steve mutters, following after with his nail covered bat slung over his shoulder. Eddie stood awkwardly on the street with Max and Robin as the boys went ahead of them. "So...you guys know someone from the lab?" He asks quietly, over the years he'd done his absolute best to forget about his time there. He certainly hadn't trained since being there and he of course hadn't seen one soul from the lab.
"El...do you know her?"
"We didn't have names Robin. I wouldn't know an El" Eddie sighed pinching the bridge of his nose. "EDDIE!" Came Dustin's shout from the door "Fucking kid." He mutters "Going to wake the whole neighorhood." He trots off to go see what Henderson needed as Max and Robin slowly began to follow, staring up at the darkened windows of the house. When they got up to the tastefully painted wrap around porch they find Eddie on his knees, picking the lock. "I could have done that." Max scowls at Dustin but Eddie chuckles "Nah, let the freak be the felon today red." She cracks him a very small smile as he manages to get the door open. Steve heads in first, bat at the ready as they clear the first floor. "Anything?"
"What exactly are we looking for?" Lucas asks quietly
"Gate maybe?" Robin says as she and Max emerge from the kitchen. "You ok Munson?" she asks, catching sight of Eddie who's stopped completely. He's standing just inside the front doorway with his eyes fixed on the stairs. "I...it's upstairs." He mutters before heading up. Steve follows quickly, bat still tightly held in his fingers. The rest of the party quickly follows, the group of teens eerily silent as Eddie bypasses every room until he comes to the one at the end of the hall. "This one." He opens the door slowly and their senses are over taken with the scent of rot and decay that flooded through the open door. "F...found it" He mumbles a little sheepishly. He stares up into what clearly used to be Chrissy's bedroom, on her ceiling is a gigantic portal to the other world. It almost glowed red ominous light, he felt almost drawn towards it as it's tendrils of darkness reached out across the ceiling.
"Nope!" Steve reaches past Eddie and pulls the door shut again. "Great. We found it, that's fun...but we are NOT all going in there. Downstairs dipshits!" He manages to heard them all including a still out of it looking Eddie to the living room.
"We have to go in there! Petal could be in there!" Max says as Steve begins to pace in the room. "So you've been seeing Petal?" Steve asks through gritted teeth
"Yes...she's really there...she talks...for like a second and then she's gone." Max looks around, as though hoping to catch a glimpse of the older red head.
"That doesn't make a lot of sense...Joyce wasn't seeing Will everywhere when Will went missing!" Steve looks at the trio of boys for confirmation and gets some tentative nodding.
Eddie who's not looking at anyone, instead looking up the stairs again from his seat on an armchair. "He wasn't part of that place..."
"What?" Steve turns at breakneck speed to look at Eddie. "What do you mean?"
"He was a...like a visitor." He shrugs "He wasn't a part of it...so he couldn't reach out like she is according to Max." Eddie mutters, his eyes flitting up and down the length of the banister as he tried to recall anything he could from his days in the lab.
"And...and Petal is?"
Eddie grimaces "Not entirely...from...from my experiences...things from that world...when they reach out they can creep into your head...they can pull you in...and if they have a mind to they can make you a part of it...I think...I think that's what's happening to her." Eddie gets a cold look on his face, like he'd just signed her death sentence with his words.
"How do you know that? You said yourself that you haven't been around this crap in years-"
"I haven't reached out in years Harrington. For a while...I was still...tuned in I guess...I would hear things...I would even see things from time to time. But nothing big because...there wasn't anything big that was aware of me...so they wouldn't reach out." He starts to fiddle with his rings harshly as he chased away the thoughts of Petal dying on the other side.
Steve goes quiet, his bat hung loosely in his right hand by his side. "So what thing from there would know about Petal?" Mike snarked into the silence, Eddie suddenly snapped his head to Max. "Your step brother."
"He's not part of the Upside Down. He was from California!" She scoffs looking at him tiredly
"How did he die though?" The room goes silent once more as the teens all thought back to their traumatic previous summer. "He...he died in the mall" She whispered, averting her gaze from Eddie to her shoes.
"What killed him?"
"Does it matter?" Robin asks quietly
Eddie stands, the chains on his pants jingling in the silence. "It matters...not everything is fucking smart enough to transfer a...a soul I guess." He bites at his lip as those around him begin to sputter amongst themselves "Shut up! Now will you please tell me about this fucker?"
Nancy
She leaned against Fred's car tiredly, it was too early for anything this charged but she had jumped at the chance to get some information. There had been another murder discovered this morning and they'd been on it like bee's to honey. Although she knew for a fact they weren't going to get close to any of the action for a while. She looked up at the statuesque Wilson house, it looked ominous under the current circumstances, but she could see its beauty beyond the brutal murder of Andy Wilson.
Police were swarming the place, his parents and little brother were sitting in the back of the ambulance, his mother sobbing into her younger son's hair.
"Think it was Carver again?" Nancy asked, taking a long drink from her to go coffee cup. She didn't recieve an answer, she turned to find Fred staring at something off in the distance. She tapped his shoulder, causing him to jump as though she'd hit him. "Woah! You ok there?" She asks as he calms his breathing slowly.
"I...I'm fine. I just...lost in thought. What did you say?" He grimaces at her, peeling the paper off of his own mug. She sighs "I asked if you thought it was Carver or not."
"I don't know...depends I guess, Wilson was one of his best friends..." He shrugs and lays his cup on the hood of the car. "What do you think?"
"Maybe he tried to hide out here...Andy wasn't having it?" She looks at him skeptically then amends herself "I don't know..." The two stand there, watching the chaos from afar for what felt like hours when Fred suddenly stiffened beside her. She turns back to him and he's gaping towards the woods before moving towards them hesitantly. "Fred?" She calls, her own heartbeat quickening. "Fred what's wrong?" She asks again when he doesn't turn back to her. She grabs his shoulder, once again seeming to shock him from his vision. He looks at her terrified before turning back in that same direction. He was breathing heavily. "I need to go Nance...can I drop you at home please?" He whispers.
"Sure, but are you-"
"I'm fine. I just need to go. I don't think I've had enough sleep, he gets into the car while muttering to himself, stealing glances toward the woods. She gets in and notices his much more squirrelly agitated behavior. He drives well over the speed limit to her house, heavily reminding her of Hargrove's driving. When he pulled up her drive way she got out and made to go up the steps to her door when she was stopped by him stepping out. "Nance...I don't...I...could you do me a favor?"
"Sure Fred." She hopes he's about to tell her what the hell was going on with him, but instead he only confuses her more.
"Stay away from the siren."
"What?"
"Just...do it. I don't know" He shoves his glasses back up his nose and gets back into the car. She takes a step towards the car to ask him what the hell that meant only for him to race from her drive way and back down the street. She throws her hands in the air exasperatedly as she heads back into the house. She tosses her house keys into the bowl by the door and calls out for her mother only to find that she and Holly weren't there. "Mike?" She called, still nothing. She hadn't seen him since the previous afternoon after they'd gotten a call from Dustin. Her mom had been uneasy about Mike hanging around with his friends right after a cheerleader's murder, but after seeing Steve driving the car they got in she seemed to feel a little better. "He's really a nice boy Nancy" She's said pointedly. Nancy rolled her eyes and went to the phone, dialing the Henderson's number. When it was picked up she heard Mrs. Henderson's voice "Hello?"
"Hello Mrs. Henderson, it's Nancy. I was wondering if Mike was there with Dustin?"
"No dear, I think they're all at Lucas's house this afternoon." She thanks her and glares at the phone as she hangs it back up. It was odd...she decided to call Lucas's house, his father told her that the boys were all spending time at the Henderson's. She thanked him too and hung up the phone. She sighed and decided to run upstairs and search for his walkie in his room. She was disappointed to find that he'd taken it with him. She tried to calm herself down, collecting her thoughts when she caught something strange outside of her window. She looked through the glass to see a girl sitting in her backyard. She was wearing a simple white dress and a weathered black leather jacket. Her hair is what had caught Nancy's gaze. It was bright red and made her skin look even more pale than it was. That was when the girl looked up. Brown eyes met grey and she gasped as she was looking into the gaze of Petal Carver. Her lips were bright red and stretched into a smile as she sat beneath the tree. She waved almost merrily up at her before the phone in Nancy's bedroom began to ring, she rushed to answer it and when she picked up she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Mike's voice.
"Mike! Where are you?" She asked, her tone turning a little too much like her mothers
"I'm just at Lucas's-"
"No you're not. I just called them. They said you were all at Dustin's!" She hisses. "But that's not important! I just saw Carver's cousin in our backyard!"
"What?! Is she really there?"
"What do you mean is she really there you idiot?!" She drags the phone to her window and tries to get a peek at the tree from there and only is able to spy the edge of her white dress against the grass. "She's still there!"
She feels a scuffle over the phone and she then hears Eddie Munson's voice come on "Wheeler? You've got Petal?"
"She's in the backyard, don't fucking ask me why!" She says frustratedly straightening her shirt.
"What does she look like?" She looks at the phone bewilderedly "Like Petal Carver?"
"No! Like what is she wearing? What is she doing?"
"She's wearing a white dress...and a leather jacket. And she's sitting under a tree. She was smiling at me..."
"We'll be over there in ten...if she looks safe just...don't approach her ok? Stay inside wheeler." She rolls her eyes "She's been missing Munson-"
"And so she decided to hang out in your backyard?! Stay the fuck inside." The line goes dead and she stares at it incredulously. She puts the phone back down and returns to Mike's window only to find that she'd disappeared. She runs downstairs to the kitchen window scanning the whole yard for her and finding nothing. She steps out onto the back porch "Petal?!" She shouts, looking around but seeing no sign of her. She turns to the tree to find a small circle of grass, a perfect circle of grass...that was dead. Right. Under. The. Tree.
Tentatively she stepped off the back porch, approaching the tree slowly with her eyes still scanning the yard for the previously missing girl. As she rounds the corner of the porch and is within reach of the tree she hears a giggle. She turns to the sound, seeing the gate shut behind her, the red hair just barely visible over the fence. "Petal?" She says a little softer now, following at a distance. She peeked out of the front gate and bit her lip, scanning the street slowly for any sign of Petal. She saw nothing. No white dress. No red hair. No leather jacket. Not an inch of her in sight.
It wasn't much longer before the rest of the party arrived at the Wheeler house, Steve looking a little pissed that he was there. She led them into the house, giving them more details about the encounter, not that she had much more to share...but then she thought back to Fred. "Fred was acting weird though..." She mumbled
"Isn't he a little weird to begin with?" Steve asks boredly from his place leaning on the counter.
"Ha ha Steve. He was jumpy...and he told me to stay away from the siren." She looks at her hands "What the hell does that mean?"
"Haven't you ever read a greek myth?" Robin asks incredulously. "Sirens were creatures that lured me to their deaths out at sea. Calling them into the perilous waters and devouring them when they got to shore." She looks around the room a little embarrassed by her outburst but sticks to her guns albeit sheepishly. "Do you really think it's...like the same?" the debate began with talks of wether or not Fred's words held any merrit and if they could be connected to the Petal sighting.
Dustin sighed and reached for something in his bag but groaned. "Steve, I need the keys to the car I forgot my-"
"Here here here" Steve hands him the keys, not turning away from Robin as he held them out. "So you think that Petal turned into some weird siren thing...to sing at people and eat them?"
Dustin rolls his eyes and takes the keys. He runs to Steve's car and finds his walkie sitting on the floor of the back seat where he'd been piled in with Mike, Eddie, and Lucas. He grabs it and goes to shove it in his bag when he hears it. A soft melodic tone, slipping through the air to his ears. He stood straight backed and listened intently again.
"Dustin?" It was so soft it was almost a whisper, but it boomed in his ears. He whirled around to see Petal standing on the street corner, a wide grin on her red lips. "Dustin!" She ran to him with her sweet smile...but something felt off. Dustin dove into Steve's car and locked the doors behind him. He practically laid down on the backseat in his struggle to make sure the other doors had stayed locked. "Dustin open the door!" Her voice sounded almost pitiful. He rolls over and sees her, her hands are pressed against the window and her face is very close to the glass as she peers in at him. "Dustin please!"
"Where...where have you been?" He stutters, not liking the look of mischief in her grey eyes. "Dustybun...come on and open the door...I've been wandering for so long...I couldn't remember the way home." Her voice is so soft and gentle...he finds himself sitting up and reaching for the door handle, but at the last moment he rips his hand away as though he'd been burnt. She scowls slightly but only for a second, her sweet smile returns almost instantly. "Come on Cutie...I've missed our little D&D lessons...haven't you?" Dustin scoots back on the back seat until he finds himself with his back against the other door. He shakes his head vigorously, transfixed on the girl against the window.
"I just want to make up for lost time Dustin" She begins to slide her fingers down the length of the window, her long red nails scratching...no...digging into the glass. Dustin covered his ears as they screeched down to the metal of the car door. She suddenly slams her hands against the car door, the entire vehicle shook as she did. Dustin felt his bag thump from the seat to the floor and he suddenly remembered his walkie. He reaches into the bag desperately and he sees she's getting worse. Her grey eyes have gone scarlet and her teeth are sharp as razors. "Open the door!" Her voice is deepening unnaturally, his fingers reach the walkie and he turns it on shakily. She's still hitting the car hard. "Steve! Lucas! Mike! Anyone!" He shouts over her deep cackle into the walkie. "Please!" He chances another look at Petal and feels himself freeze. She's stopped completely, grinning at him with her sharp teeth gleaming in the light of the dying afternoon. Her smile begins to widen, getting unnaturally wide, until her cheeks begin to split to lengthen her smile. Blood pouring down her chin and onto the window as she did.
She opened her mouth, revealing rows of teeth that looked far too much like the demogorgon's mouths "I'm going to rip you apart sweet boy" Her voice was so deep she sounded like a demon but the next sound out of her was a shriek that would terrify the devil himself. She slammed against the door of the car as she screamed. Her nails turned to claws and punctured the window as she continued to wail in pain. Dustin's back was firmly against the other back door of the car when something smacked against the window behind his head. He turned to find Robin and Nancy frantically pulling at the door to get him out. He unlocked it and tumbled out as Nancy got the door open. He feels himself getting yanked up by Robin and as they pull him away from the car he sees Steve and Eddie wailing on whatever it was that took Petal's form. Steve with the bat lodged in her back and Eddie was beating her over the head with a heavy cast iron skillet. She was pinned face first against the car but she didn't allow that to keep the two men out of her reach. Her right arm gave a sickening crack as she slammed it backwards at an unnatural angle to swipe at Steve. She catches him in the arm and he's thrown backward his arm sliced open by her claws. She stands fully and turns to face Eddie, her cheeks having knit themselves back together. Dustin could still hear her like she was an inch from his ear. "Eddie? Baby? What are you doing?" Her voice is back to its soft tone, almost massaging the hurt of her disappearance. "Didn't you miss me Eddie?" She's almost whimpering at him, reaching out a no longer clawed hand to touch his face. Dustin moves to help but he's held fast by Robin who seems to be having a panic attack.
"I miss my girlfriend you bitch" He rears the pan back and swings it, every intention of hitting her straight in the face but his pan goes flying out of his hands. She's slapped it out of his hand and caught his throat in her rapidly elongating fingers. "He wants you alive darling." Her voice curling through the air as she squeezes his throat. Steve is struggling to get back up and Nancy is running for the two only for the gate to suddenly open up.